The Past's Promise: Lessons from Peace Processes in Northern Ireland and the Middle East
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343306060899 |
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| Author | Gregory M. Maney,Gareth I. Higgins,Ibtisam Ibrahim,Hanna Herzog |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
181
Introduction
Just as a lasting peace settlement in the
Middle East appeared tantalizingly close, the
millennium ushered in a new era of political
© 2006 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 43, no. 2, 2006, pp. 181–200
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343306060899
The Past’s Promise: Lessons from Peace Processes
in Northern Ireland and the Middle East*
GREGORY M. MANEY
Department of Sociology, Hofstra University
IBTISAM IBRAHIM
Centre for Arab American Studies, University of Michigan–Dearborn
GARETH I. HIGGINS
Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin
HANNA HERZOG
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University
Just as the Northern Ireland and Israeli–Palestinian peace processes appeared close to achieving lasting
resolutions to conflict, both initiatives fell into crisis. This study combines power conflict and trans-
action cost approaches to analyze the strengths and the weaknesses of the Belfast Good Friday (BGF)
and the Oslo peace processes. Dimensions that empower participants and increase certainty strengthen
peace processes. Dimensions that are disempowering of participants and decrease certainty weaken
peace processes. The two peace processes shared the strengths of including militant nationalists in nego-
tiations and generating international pressure and support. Unlike the Oslo process, the BGF process
benefited from greater constitutional certainty, minority safeguards, grass-roots legitimacy, effective
responses to spoilers, and minority-supportive intervention by the US government. Unlike the BGF
process, the Oslo process benefited from broad international participation in negotiations, leading to
agreements that had clearly specified mechanisms for implementation. Shared weaknesses of the two
processes included transgressing zero-sum game assumptions and identity boundaries, manipulation of
popular fears by elites, and the marginal, if not negative, role played by civil society. In addition to
pointing out ways that each peace process could benefit by appropriating the advantages of the other,
the article offers several promising strategies for overcoming shared weaknesses, including challenging
zero-sum assumptions, constructing more inclusive collective identities, grass-roots education regard-
ing manipulative elites, strengthening non-sectarian segments of civil society, and breaking cycles of
violence through reconciliation processes.
* We thank Patrick Coy, Lynne Woehrle, and the anony-
mous reviewers for their helpful comments. An earlier
version was presented at the 99th Annual Meeting of the
American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA,
14–17 August 2004. Please direct correspondence to
Gregory M. Maney: socgmm@hofstra.edu.
violence. Those who have consistently
opposed peace initiatives now command the
bulk of the positions in the Israeli cabinet.
The cabinet’s decision to withdraw from
some settlements has antagonized hardliners,
while the fence being built around the
Occupied Territories has deepened a sense of
insecurity among Palestinians.1As intensi-
fied Israeli military operations and escalating
Palestinian paramilitary attacks upon Israelis
feed off one another, armed conflict spirals
outward. In Northern Ireland, recent elec-
tions have given the largest bloc of Unionist
votes to the Democratic Unionist Party
(DUP) and the largest bloc of Nationalist
votes to Sinn Féin. Given that the DUP has
consistently opposed the Belfast Good
Friday Agreement while Sinn Féin was
reticent to consent to Unionist demands
on the decommissioning of Republican
weaponry, the most recent peace initiative
has found itself in troubled waters.
To identify paths towards conflict resolu-
tion, we must understand not only the limi-
tations but also the promise of the past.
After developing a conceptual framework for
analyzing peace processes, we assess the
strengths and weaknesses of the Belfast Good
Friday Agreement and the Oslo Accords.
Future peace processes will be more likely
to succeed if they build upon the strengths
of past initiatives as well as developing
more effective strategies to overcome the
weaknesses.
A Theory of Successful Peace
Processes
A consensus has emerged that, in order to be
successful, a peace process must transform
the underlying causes of ethnic conflict
(Burton, 1990; Brand-Jacobsen & Jacobsen,
2000; Darby & Mac Ginty, 2003).2Unfor-
tunately, scholars disagree over what, in fact,
constitute underlying causes. Some empha-
size structural sources of conflict such as
power imbalances and group-level inequali-
ties in the distribution of resources (e.g.
Ruane & Todd, 1996; Varennes, 2003).
Others focus upon cultural sources such as
identity formation and intercultural misun-
derstandings (e.g. Kelman, 1998; Ross,
2001). We see structural and cultural factors
as interrelated causes that must be addressed
if a peace process is to be successful. Just as
power imbalances encourage negative per-
ceptions of the ‘other’, negative perceptions
raise doubts about the possibility of balanc-
ing power as well as fears about its conse-
quences. Accordingly, our goal is to develop
a parsimonious conceptual framework that
explains the success of a peace process in
terms of its ability to address both structural
and cultural sources of ethnic conflict. We
argue that to be successful, a peace process
must transform power relations while
creating certainty along multiple dimensions
at both the elite and grass-roots levels. We
now discuss both pillars of our analytical
framework, starting with power relations.
Transforming Power Relations
A successful peace process transforms group
power relations from the dynamics of domi-
nation and resistance, or ‘power over’,
towards cooperation and mutual empower-
ment, or ‘power to’. A skewed distribution of
group power results in unequal life chances
that create latent if not open conflict
(Galtung, 1969; Curle, 1971). Rebellion, in
part, constitutes an effort to increase
minority group power. In turn, repression by
journal of PEACE RESEARCH volume 43 / number 2 / march 2006
182
1We define hardline nationalists as nationalists unwilling
to compromise their existing course or policies. Militant
nationalists vigorously pursue nationalist objectives. While
hardline nationalists are, by definition, unlikely to enter
peace processes, militant nationalists may do so if they
believe these processes will advance their objectives better
than their existing course or policies.
2Drawing from Lederach (1995: 11–23), we define a
successful peace process as an intergroup process that
increases social justice, reduces violence, and restores
broken relationships.
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